


Petrol

by UnicornAttack



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Homophobic Language, Internalized Homophobia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-26
Updated: 2012-10-26
Packaged: 2017-11-17 01:59:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/546391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnicornAttack/pseuds/UnicornAttack
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Whenever Ned saw the jacket, it took him back, brought memories of the smell of petrol and cigarette smoke and alcohol into the present from 1986, when they were seventeen, and when they made the best mistake possible. Text in brackets are the characters' thoughts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Petrol

“I’m not queer!”

“Robert—”

“I’m not! Fuck off!”

Robert was sitting on a wall outside, trying to light a cigarette with shaking hands. If Ned hadn’t known Robert as well as he did he would have thought he was crying. Robert didn’t cry. Crying, in Robert’s mind, was for little kids, women and gays.

“Here,” Ned said gently, trying to take the lighter. “Let me—”

Without warning, Robert stood up and decked him. Ned fell on his arse, the dampness from the pavement soaking through his jeans. He could taste the coppery tang of blood on his lips.

"Get away from me! Don’t touch me, you fucking queen!”

“Robert, please, I’m just trying to help—”

“I don’t WANT your help! How do I know you’ve not got AIDs?”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake! Not every gay man on the planet has AIDs!”

Robert looked down at Ned, sitting on the pavement with a thin line of blood trickling down his chin, and felt something

(love? desire?)

wash over him. He stuck his hand out, and Ned warily took it. He pulled his friend to his feet.

“I’m sorry, mate. Must be the booze.”

“Yeah.”

Ned sounded incredulous, but Robert didn’t say anything about it.

“Is your lip OK?”

“It’s fine. It’ll be a bit swollen in the morning, but I can tell my mum I walked into something.”

Robert nodded. They began to walk down the road, away from the Tully house.

“So,” Ned remarked after a while, “did you see Cate Tully?”

“Wait, you _are_ straight?”

“Yeah.”

“Then why did you try to kiss me?”

“Lyanna told me that girls like gay guys. They’re less threatening or something.”

“Oh.”

This, of course, was bullshit. Ned had kissed Robert because he wanted to kiss him, not to impress Catelyn Tully (although she wasn’t too bad herself). They walked back to Robert’s house in silence. His parents were away, but Stannis was there, and Ned was painfully aware of what Stannis thought of him. When they arrived at the Baratheon homestead, an impressive and slightly ominous Gothic 19th-century affair, Robert turned to Ned.

“Want to come inside?”

“Nah, I’m good. Stannis hates me, anyway.”

“OK. See you tomorrow.”

An awkward pause ensued. Ned was about to ask Robert if he was going inside or not when Robert grabbed him by the shoulders, pulled him close and kissed him. It was a little different than kissing a girl—for a start, he’d never kissed a girl with a five o’clock shadow. Despite his initial shock he didn't resist, and he clung to the back of Robert’s leather jacket. He smelled like petrol and cigarette smoke. Then Robert’s hand was rubbing at the front of his jeans

(there’s no harm in it really there’s no harm in it really no harm in it)

and he was making little gasping noises, and—

“Stop,” he said suddenly. Robert pulled back and looked at him in surprise.

“Ned?”

“Can we not do this outside? It’s cold enough to freeze your bollocks off out here.”

Robert grinned.

“Won’t your parents mind?”

“I can ring them.”

“Very well. Inside it is.”

 

It didn’t last, of course. It was no more than an adolescent fling. It didn’t make things awkward between them at all. They went to university, started working at the company (which Robert took over in 1994, one of the youngest people ever to do so), got married, had children. Robert died in 2012. Ned had wanted to cry, but managed not to. That was for Robert’s kids. He had agreed to help sort out Robert’s belongings, and when he came across his old leather jacket the urge to weep was suddenly stronger than ever. He had smoothed it out and looked at it, and when Cersei appeared at the door Ned smiled at her.

“Brings back a lot of memories,” he said. She sniffed.

“I never liked it myself.”

(you wouldn’t you stuck up bitch never liked anything about him)

Ned placed it carefully in one of the boxes. As he drove home that night, he passed by the house Robert, Stannis and Renly had grown up in. The oak tree in the front garden was still there, the same one Robert and he had sat under as teenagers, kissing, talking or just sitting there. He remembered the smell of cigarettes and of the old motorbike Robert had once kept, and he couldn't hold it in any more. He pulled over into the nearest lay-by, brought his hands to his face and wept.

**Author's Note:**

> This was just a soppy little thing I knocked out in about forty minutes a few months ago. I just found it on my laptop, did a bit of tweaking and this is the final result.


End file.
